


Castaways

by essential_invisible



Category: Sea Patrol (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 16:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18237434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/essential_invisible/pseuds/essential_invisible
Summary: When their routine boarding goes awry, Kate and the boarding party find themselves stranded on Lightning, while miles away, the Hammersley crew respond to an urgent mayday unaware of the danger that their shipmates are facing. Ensemble piece, mid to late S3.





	Castaways

**Castaways**

**Part 01: Adrift**

**RHIB; call sign Lightning**

**Location: Coral Sea**

**1543 hours**

It takes them a while to realize the Hammersley isn’t coming.

 

Bomber is the first to voice it, her natural exuberance subdued. “It’s been a while – shouldn’t they have been here by now?”

 

Kate exchanges a glance with Buffer, before shading her eyes as she looked out over the horizon. She’d cracked the visor on her helmet during the initial scuffle on the SIEV, and her cap had been ripped off her DPNU at some point during the second struggle. The heat from the sun is intense, and she can feel a headache coming on. At least her clothes have dried out, though her boots still feel damp. “You heard the boss, Bomb, they were heading back to us as soon as they responded to the mayday call.”

 

Although she sounds confident, Kate feels nothing of the sort. Hammersley was at least 90 minutes off schedule for their rendezvous, and their radios had stopped working long before that. The RHIB’s engine is shot through, and she has the sinking suspicion that they’ve been drifting in the water, carried away from their original position by the currents. She can’t see the debris from the SIEV anymore, regardless.

 

“Well how long is that going to take?” 2Dads cuts in. “Plus, we’ve got both Swaino and Bomber on Lightning with us, what are they going to do if they need a medic?”

 

“Thanks for putting that out there, mate.” Swain doesn’t look too impressed, and she can’t blame him. She doesn’t want to think of that either, nor about the blowback that they’re bound to get. Having the XO, buffer and coxswain off the ship for a boarding party was routine – but as she glances at her watch, Kate realizes that they’ve been off the Hammersley for over six hours now. They’d boarded the SIEV at 0933 hours this morning, and it was nearing 1600. They’re all ship-stoppers by themselves – having all three of them off the ship for so long wasn’t going to look too good when Mike made his reports.

 

“No worries Swaino,” 2Dads shoots back and adjusts his cap. “Man, it is hot out here!”

 

“Can we lose the boarding jackets and Kevlar, X?” Kate looks at Bomber, and then the rest of her team. Buffer looks as unruffled as ever, Swain much the same. 2Dads is clearly uncomfortable, but poor Bomber seems to be hit by the heat the hardest. She glances over the horizon, eyes scanning for danger.

 

“Yeah, but one at a time guys, and the life-jackets go straight back on.” She cautions them, knowing that the reminder isn’t really necessary.

 

Bomber sighs in relief, pointing a finger at 2Dads when he makes a move to take his vest off. “Uh-uh, 2Dads, I’m going first.”

 

“C’mon Bomb, I’m melting here!”

 

“2Dads,” Bomber starts, and simply stares at the blond, who sighs.

 

“Go on then, Bomber. Hurry it up though!”

 

While the junior sailors duke it out, Kate turns to Buffer. His fingers tap rhythmically against the inflated hull, a heavy, dull thumping.  “Give up smoking again, Buff?” She ignores his flat stare, and smiles. “How’re we looking?” She motions to the GPS.

 

“Not too good, X.” He beckons her closer, and she carefully shifts across, her vision swimming a little. She’s not sure how much damage her ribs had taken, and she doesn’t want to make anything worse. Though as she stares at the cracked facing of their GPS unit, she’s not sure how much worse it can get.

 

“Well, shit,” she says almost absently, missing Swain’s hastily muffled snort. “That’s not good.”

 

“We’re drifting, aren’t we?” Swain’s voice is muted as he pulls his Kevlar vest off, ignoring 2Dads’ cry of protest. Kate spares the younger sailor a glance, and motions for him to continue.

 

“My best estimate?” Kate squints up at the sun, then looks west. “We’ve been drifting south-east of our starting point – we’re about thirty degrees and at least three miles off where we’re meant to be.” She looks pointedly at Buffer, who makes no move to remove his vest.

 

“You first X, you’ve gotta be dying under there.” Kate’s not going to argue the point. She knows when to pick her battles with Buffer, and this isn’t one of them.

 

“Three miles isn’t that bad, is it?” Bomber queries, sighing in relief as a small breeze hits her. She’s stripped off her DPNU shirt, and looks fairly comfortable in her regulation t-shirt under her life-vest. Kate idly looks down at her own DPNU, before deciding to keep it on. She burns far too easily, and the last thing she needs to be dealing with is sunburn.

 

“It depends,” Kate starts. “Distance wise, we’re not too far off, but the heading change will throw them off when looking at a search radius.”

 

“They’d factor the current in, though, right, X?” She gives 2Dads a surprised look. “Hey, I can navigate!”

 

“What, out of the harbour?” Buffer smirks at the look of affront on 2Dads face, before the blond relents.

 

“Okay, maybe I’ve just picked up on what the X says when she’s planning out a search.” He adjusts the cap on his head, before looking back at Kate. “You okay there X? That shiner doesn’t look too good.”

 

“Thanks 2Dads,” Kate grumbles. She’d actually managed to forget about the dull throbbing in her cheek and under her eye, though 2Dads words had just acted as reminder for her brain.

 

“I should probably take a proper look at that, X.” Swain manoeuvres across the RHIB, kneeling in front of her. He’d given them all a quick once over after the initial boarding, but hasn’t had a chance since. Kate hisses as his fingers move swiftly across her cheek, before he pulls a Maglite from his DPNU. “Doesn’t look like you’ve cracked your cheekbone, though from the look of your pupils, I’d say you probably have a concussion.”

 

“I’m fine Swaino,” she starts, and then stops at his unimpressed look. “Okay, so maybe I have a little headache.” She supposes it explained the occasional blur and the nausea. She hasn’t been seasick since her first patrol on the Hammersley, her stomach used to the stable frigates. The Fremantle-class Hammersley had almost felt like a bath toy during those first few days, her nausea not helped by the constant churning in her stomach from seeing Mike again.

 

“Did you hit your head against anything?” She feels his hands move carefully over her hair, feeling for any bumps.

 

“Must’ve been after you took that first guy down, X.” Bomber chimes in.

 

“Maybe after I took my helmet off, but it was such a – ow!” She glares at Swain as he presses down on the back of her head.

 

“Yeah, you must have knocked it against something, there’s a bit of swelling there.”

 

“Is it serious?” She can feel Buffer’s concerned gaze on her, and smiles reassuringly. He doesn’t look reassured.

 

“Any other symptoms? Blurred vision, nausea, vertigo?” Swain holds up the Maglite again, shining the torch into her eyes. “Look up.”

 

She follows his instructions dutifully, though moving her eyes around so quickly isn’t doing her stomach any favours. “Uh, nausea, and a bit of blurred vision.” She blinks as he flicks the torch off, feeling like the light has seared her retinas. “I’m fine!” She throws out, though she can see that neither Buffer nor Swain are buying it.

 

“So how are we going to explain all of this to the boss, anyway?” Bomber asks, breaking the silent stare down between Kate and Swain.

 

“Blame 2Dads.” Buffer puts forward the idea with a smirk.

 

“Yeah, I could go with that.” Swain agrees, and Kate stifles a laugh at 2Dads expression.

 

“Uh-uh, not a chance! This was in no way my fault!”

 

“For once,” Bomber adds slyly. Kate does laugh then, and regrets it immediately as the nausea rises. Not moving was looking like a better plan. She’s not looking forward to explaining to Mike what a mess this mission had turned into.

 

“There were five of us, all armed – Glocks and the semi’s. Boss is going to want to know how they managed to shoot out Lightning’s engine, and get away on the zodiac.” 2Dads pats the gun in his leg holster, as if to reassure himself that it’s still there.

 

“Well, the SIEV wasn’t a SIEV.”

 

“Yeah, no kidding Swaino,” Buffer interrupts. “What gave it away, the armed mercenaries, the bullet proof armour or the hold full of drugs?”

 

Swain rolls his eyes. “I’m just saying, we were expecting a group of unarmed civilians, not drug smugglers.”

 

“We should have been prepared for anything, regardless of what we were expecting.” Kate says, her voice quiet.

 

“C’mon X, it was a routine inspection of a SIEV.”

 

She knows that Swain is just trying to make her feel better, but it’s not exactly helpful now. “We had everyone secure on the boat deck after the initial resistance. We were comfortable enough that we agreed with Hammersley leaving us behind to wait while they answered the mayday.” She runs through the events of the boarding, searching for when it had gone so horribly wrong. “2Dads was down below, cataloguing the drugs with Bomber.”

 

“You were in the wheelhouse, and Swain was patching up one of the mercenaries.” Buffer recounts, his fingers drumming faster. “I was keeping an eye on the rest of the boat deck.” He scowls, his face darkening. “I didn’t hear the zodiac coming.”

 

“None of us did, Buff.” Kate tries valiantly to swallow down the nausea, and then swiftly turns and retches over the side of the RHIB.

 

“X!”

 

She can feel someone’s hands gripping the back of her vest, preventing her from keeling over the edge, while someone else holds her hair out of her face. “Ugh,” she groans as the nausea subsides, grimacing at the taste of bile in her mouth.

 

“Here,” she blinks at Swain as his face swims back into focus. She opens her mouth gratefully as he carefully tilts the water bottle towards her, pulling back as she rinses her mouth out. She takes a small sip, not wanting to set herself off again, and relaxes a little as the water does nothing but soothe her throat.

 

“You okay, X?” Bomber sounds anxious. The two junior sailors are sitting on the other end of Lightning, looking back at her.

 

“I’m alright, Bomb, thanks.” Kate ignores Swain’s raised eyebrow – there isn’t anything he can do about it right now, so there’s no use dwelling on it. The dull throb in her ribs hasn’t gotten any worse, so she doesn’t think it’s serious enough to warrant any more poking or prodding. “There were what, two POB on the zodiac?”

 

“Yeah. Bastards snuck up on me.” Buffer’s voice is grim.

 

“They took us all by surprise, mate.” Swain sounds rueful. “You’d gone down to see what was taking 2Dads and Bomber so long, the X was coming down to the boat-deck, and then all hell broke loose.”

 

“It was my fault.” Kate admits, and closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to see them agree with her. “I was caught off guard, and the guy had a gun to my head before I knew he was there.”

 

“Could’ve been any one of us, X.” She blinks, and then smiles gratefully at Buffer. She can see that he truly believes it, that he’s not just giving her empty platitudes. It does help.

 

“What I don’t get is why they didn’t kill us?” 2Dads muses. “I mean, they could’ve done it easy as.” None of the senior sailors look amused by the insinuation that they’d have been an easy mark, and he hastily adds, “not that we wouldn’t have gone down fighting, I’m just saying…”

 

“Killing five Navy sailors?” Buffer shakes his head. “Would’ve brought too much heat to them.”

 

“They left us with our weapons,” Bomber points out. She’s not wrong, they still have all their guns.

 

“Yeah, but you weren’t likely to fire on the zodiac while they had me on board,” Kate adds. “Once they shot out the motor, and the SIEV was sunk, you were basically stranded.” She touches the bruise on her cheekbone instinctively. The asshole had punched her again, before pitching her overboard as soon as the RHIB had been out of sight. “Shit.” She says under her breath, looking around at the position of the sun more carefully.

 

“What?”

 

“When I went into the water,” she glances between Buffer and Swain, who look none too happy at the reminder.

 

“Yeah, not gonna lie, X, we’re lucky that we found you out there. Without the engine, and only one paddle, we were pretty much going around in circles.” Buffer shakes his head. “You’re even luckier that you swum back in the right direction.”

 

Seeing the RHIB coming over the horizon had been a relief. She’d been disoriented, the multiple hits to the head having done a number on her. Kate’s usually impeccable sense of direction had been shot. They’d heaved her out of the water, the buoyancy of the life jacket, while helping to keep her afloat, not affecting the waterlogged Kevlar. She’d been lucky the weight of it hadn’t dragged her down – if she’d lost consciousness with that second blow, she’d have been a goner. “Yeah, but what with you paddling out to meet me,” she pauses, before she sucks it up and gives them the bad news. “I have no idea how far off course we are.”

 

“Didn’t you say earlier - ”

 

“Yeah, but I didn’t factor this in,” Kate says, cutting 2Dads off. She resists the urge to bury her face in her hands. She’s the XO, she can handle this. She has to.

 

“The zodiac was going south.” Swain sounds resigned, and she can see that he’s come to the same realization that she had.

 

“What does that mean?” Bomber asks.

 

Kate makes a note to go over the basics of navigation with her when they get back on to the Hammersley. “It means that we’re probably much further away from where we’re meant to be, and that they’re likely to miss us in the first sweep.” She gives the brunette what she hopes is a reassuring look. “They’ll need to widen the search parameters, and we’re likely to be picked up on their next sweep.”

 

“Which means we’re on our own for a little longer than we’d thought.” Buffer turns to her, “we should take stock of our supplies, X.”

 

“Yeah.” She looks at the RHIB, assessing. Thunder and Lighting were stocked with the basic survival kits, so they at least had some water and food. It wouldn’t last long, though they could stretch it out with the rat packs they all had in their bags. “How are we for ammo?” It’s crossed her mind that the zodiac could swing back, that the drug runners may decide that they were better off leaving no witnesses. She regrets letting them take their Kevlar off. “Kevlar back on guys.”

 

“Two full clips for my glock, four left in the third,” Buffer slides his gun smoothly back into its holster and reaches for Kate’s. “Looks like you’ve got three in here, and what, two full clips?” She nods. The others chime in, their responses pretty much the same. The semi-automatics are half-empty, though they have spare magazines.

 

“At least we can shoot any sharks that coming looking, hey?” 2Dads says.

 

“Always with the glass half-full, 2Dads.” Swain chuckles as they all instinctively look to the water.

 

Kate frowns. The ocean hasn’t exactly been steady while they’ve been on the RHIB, but she thinks the swells are getting bigger. “Uh, Buff?”

 

“I see it, X.”

 

Kate looks out over the horizon again, frowning. While the sun is still intense, she can see the darkening clouds just barely visible on the edge of the horizon. She reaches for Buffer’s radio, her own lying useless at the bottom of the RHIB. “Charlie-82 this is X-ray-82, come in.” She shrugs at the look he gives her. “Was worth a shot.”

 

“X, is it just me, or is the current stronger?”

 

“Not just you 2Dads.” She purses her lips, racks her brain, thinking back to the charts she’d studied before they’d prepared the boarding party. There’d been an island or two on there, but for the life of her she can’t remember which direction they’d been situated. The pounding in her head is stronger, almost keeping rhythm with Buffer’s fingers, which have resumed their tapping against the RHIB.

 

“Well, we’re safe in Lightning, right?” Bomber gestures to the RHIB. “She’s pretty much unsinkable, isn’t she?”

 

Swain groans, shaking his head. “Way to go Bomb, you may as well have said, ‘what could possibly go wrong?’”

 

“Now you’ve done it Swaino,” Buffer points out.

 

“Hey, as long as Lightning doesn’t get hit by lightning, we’ll be fine.” 2Dads laughs, though it quickly fades as the RHIB rocks in time with the swell. “So the Hammersley should be looking for us right now, yeah?”

 

“Yeah, 2Dads.” Kate glances down at her watch. 1609. “Bit later than we might like, but they’ll get here.”

 

“Yeah,” Buffer agrees.

 

They sit in silence after that, keeping a wary out at the increasingly choppy water and the darkening sky.

 

:::

 

**HMAS Hammersley**

**Location: Arafura Sea**

**1240 hours**

 

“How’re we looking Nav?” Mike pulls the binoculars away, turning to look back at Nav.

 

“Uh, nothing on the radar, sir, but we’re coming up to the co-ordinates that NAVCOM sent through.”

 

“Okay. Charge, prep a RHIB. I want this squared away before we turn back for the SIEV and our crew. Nav, pipe boarding stations.”

 

Mike watches as his crew follow his orders, before shifting his gaze to RO. “Anything new from Coast Guard, RO?”

 

“No sir. Though they should have come up on our radar by now, sir.”

 

Mike agrees. The mayday call had come through well over an hour ago. While the vessel may have gone down, there should have been signs. “No EPIRB signal?”

 

RO shakes his head. “Not yet, sir.” He hesitates, before continuing. “Ship’s manifest had three POB, according to NAVCOM. If the boat went down fast, they may not have had a chance to get to it, if they even had one in the first place.”

 

Mike cuts him off before he can build up steam. “Well, Thunder’s out there now, looking around. If there’s something to be found, they’ll find it.”

 

Three hours later, he thinks he’s spoken far too soon. They’d found one body in the water, and no signs of the ship, or the two other POB. Marshall has them sitting tight to wait for handover to AFP.

 

“Boss, AFP are still another hour out.” RO calls out, pulling his headset off.

 

Mike frowns. They’ve already been away from their boarding party longer than he’d have liked and have missed their initial rendezvous with the SIEV. Another hour of waiting, maybe half that in handover – “Nav, how long will it take for us to get back to the SIEV?”

 

“In current conditions, at full speed, maybe 90 minutes?”

 

He can hear the hesitation in her voice. “What is it?”

 

“There’s a storm coming up on their end, Boss. We’ll have to ride through it.”

 

Which means slower speeds, a later rendezvous time. He trusts Kate, and the rest of the team on the SIEV, but he can’t help the feeling in his gut. “ETA?”

 

“Factoring in the storm, we should rendezvous with the SIEV at just after 2000.”

 

Mike scowls. That’s four hours from now. His gut clenches, and he turns to the radio. “X-Ray-82, this is Charlie-82, over.” He waits for a reply, even as he knows they’re too far away to get a signal. “X-Ray-82, this is Charlie-82. If you can hear us, we’re going to be a little late in coming to pick you up. Hang tight, we’ll see you just after 2000.”

 

He puts the radio down, and rakes a hand through his hair. He shifts, turns to look between RO and Charge. “With Bomber out on the boarding party, someone needs to man the galley. RO?”

 

Charge and RO both protest, though for entirely different reasons. “Co-opt Rhino, I hear he can make a mean spag-bol.” Mike smiles as RO huffs.

 

“Yes sir.”

 

Mike turns to look over the bridge. “We’re coming X, hang tight.” He repeats to himself almost silently, though he can feel Nav’s stare. When he looks at her though, she’s staring diligently into the radar. “Something to add, Nav?”

 

“No, sir. Was just thinking Bomber’s red curry sounded good right about now.”

 

He nods, not really buying it, before settling in to wait.

 

Four hours to go.

 

:::

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you think, good or bad.
> 
> next chapter is in the works, though no guarantees that it'll be as long as this one was.
> 
> also, would love some ideas for the title. I kinda hate this one.


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